Hi guys, welcome back to Global Business Environment. This is Module One. And it'll be Part Five of Module One, in which we've been asking the question, what is globalization? And in this brief module, we've tried to just gain a little bit better understanding of globalization. In this last one, we're going to talk a little bit more about the controversies and, and try to understand why it's such a complex issue to get our arms around or to try to understand. One reason that that's the case is because there are differing levels of income across the world. Different countries have different levels of wealth, different levels of economic success. In fact, we'll talk about that in an entire module later in this course. But one of the arguments is that if you have, excuse me, if you have large levels of interactions across borders. If you have higher levels of integration across borders. Do the benefits go to individual countries to the same level or degree? Or are the rules set up so that wealthier countries benefit more than less developed countries? And we've seen, this relative inequality in practice. For example when we showed this data or this map on the degree of internet penetration across the world. And we see that in some parts of the world internet utilization is still quite low. And in other parts of the world citizens have access to the internet. So is it fair for these countries to trade for example, if one place has better information about prices or trade practices, and others have more difficult access? This inequality is also seen in this map of the world. Which shows the degree of inequality within borders. In this particular map we're looking at something called the GINI coefficient. Which is a measure of, of income inequality within a country. And the GINI coefficient ranges from zero to one, and in a country that is one has a, if, if there were a country that had a score of one on this GINI coefficient, that would mean that one person had all of the wealth. And so a score of getting closer to one means less equality and a score closer to zero means more equality, or better income distribution. And we see that there is a, a great amount of diversity for example most of Europe has a lower GINI coefficient than parts the majority of North America. There are some parts of the world for example, in Southern Africa, that have very high levels of inequality, you might argue. And so is it fair to set up these global rules? Do they benefit certain parts of certain countries differentially? Are the individuals in society with lower levels of income being heard? Others would say, well the fact that these levels are relatively low of or, high inequality, that suggest that there's relatively low wages for, citizens who, perhaps, are involved in entry level jobs. Are they benefited more by globalization because, for example, are new jobs brought to them that improve their quality of life? In the example we talked about earlier, you might ask that question with the Foxconn Plant. As you explore it you might find that some of those individuals working for that Foxconn Plant in China and there is more than one actually. Have received higher wages than they would have in the past and their quality of life in terms of income has improved. And so it's a, it's a big debate. So one question we might ask, and is often involved in this debate, is to what degree countries have benefited over time from globalization. We have a very interesting example in the history of the world in the recent past with what we often call the Four Asian Tigers. And these countries, or regions, or places however you might describe them benefited from embracing globalization around the same time and have seen explosive growth in their gross domestic product per capita. And these four Asian tigers are Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Each of these places has their own history, and political relationships, and economic situations and regulations, but all four of them have seen incredible growth in their gross domestic product. As they've embraced increasing levels of trade they have embraced policies which have brought political openness, have brought protect, protection for property rights. There's been an increase in media availability and freedom of expression. And there's been a decrease in corruption and the economies of these Four Asian Tigers and the societies have become better off. They've joined to differing degrees a variety of international bodies. For example all four of the Asian Tigers are members of The World Trade Organization. And so, you might argue that to some degree, this at least tells us that globalization hasn't hurt all countries because, or all places, or all regions of the world. Because these Four Asian Tigers emerged, in part, by embracing a more open global relationship with the rest of the world. And so if you would like to know more about that you can look up Asian Tiger or Economic Miracle to understand the, the complex process that really occurred that has allowed these Four Asian Tigers to propel forward at a rapid rate over the last 50 years. And the point of all that is to improve the lives of their citizens. And so, when we talk about globalization in the global business environment, I encourage you to, to constantly go back to that. Even though we'll talk about complex business issues. Ultimately, improving quality of life for individuals is the goal of any policy that's related to more openness. So this ends module one in which we've tried to understand what globalization is and we've termed it in, in the following way. The increased interaction and integration of countries, economies, companies, and peoples across the globe. And we've determined that it's not completely a globalized world yet. But we have seen increases in various measures that lead us to believe that globalization is a very important force in today's world. Thank you very much.
